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WORK AND HABITS
WORK AND HABITS
BY
ALBERT
J.
BEVERIDGE
United States Senator from Indiana
Author
of
'THE BIBLE AS GOOD READING"
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
Copyright,
1905, 1906,
by The Curtis Publishing Co.
Copyright,
1908,
by Howard E. Altemus
Published May, 1908
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MAY 20 1908
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CONTENTS
I Work and Habits 9
II Money 29
HI The Vicious Fear of Losing
53
IV American Character Illustrated by Wash-
ington
75
WORK AND HABITS
WORK AND HABITS
EVERY
man's problem is how to be effect-
ive. Consciously or unconsciously, the
question you are asking yourself is,
"How shall I make my strength count for most
in this world of effort? And this is the ques-
tion which every one of us ought to ask himself.
But not for the purpose of mere selfish gain;
not to get money for the sake of money, or
fame for the sake of fame ; but for the sake of
usefulness in the world; for the sake of help-
fulness to those we love; for the sake of all
humanity. Selfishness poisons all it touches,
and makes all achievement Dead Sea fruit
which turns to ashes on the lips.
So the great question, "How shall I make
the most of myself?" which every worker in
the world is asking, must be nobly asked and
9
WORK AND HABITS
therefore unselfishly asked if you would have
it wisely answered. There are two words that
solve this query of your destiny, and those two
words are "Work" and "Habits."
I am writing to men who toil; and I have
reached an age where I consider no one but
workers worth while. But by those who toil
I do not mean only those who work with their
hands. I mean those who work with their
brains as well. I mean the engineer who
drives a locomotive, but also the inventor who
created it ; the mason and mechanic who erect
a building, and also the thoughtful man who
conceived it and the energetic man who made
it possible; the printer who puts upon the
page the words of useful books, but also the
poet who dreams the dreams that printer re-
produces, the novelist who' enchants our weary
hours, the economist who instructs us in the
facts of life and the duties of citizenship, and
all of that glorious company of brain-workers
who uplift, make pure and glorify humanity.
I mean the farmer who sows and reaps, but
10
WORK AND HABITS
also the miller who with his well-earned capital
grinds the farmer's products into food for the
feeding of the people. I mean the banker
as much as the drayman; the physician as
much as the street-car motorman; the states-
man who honestly and faithfully labors
to make this nation better as much as the
section hand. In short, I mean every man
who with mind or muscle toils at the tasks
which our common needs bring to each one
of us.
The first thing necessary to the doing of
good work is that the man who does it shall
love his work. Lasting work means loving
work. The greatest cathedral on earth is that
at Chartres, in France. No man knows its
architect or its builders. It was erected ac-
cording to plans devised by holy men who
cared nothing for their own glory but cared
everything for the glory of Him whose serv-
ants they were. It was builded by thousands
of artisans who came from all over France
and gave their services without price and even
ii
WORK AND HABITS
without record, as an act of worship. The
materials were furnished by tens of thousands
of peasants, and each stone they contributed
was consecrated by prayer and swung to* posi-
tion with the power of a Divine affection.
And so the cathedral at Chartres stands, and
will forever stand, as the highest type of
sacred architecture the world has ever known.
Such devotion to our daily tasks is not pos-
sible to any of us in the hurried and harried
civilization of to-day. We must have bread;
we must fill our home with the necessities and
comforts of life. Our first business is to make
our loved ones happy. Wages, profits and all
kinds of money reward for all we do are abso-
lutely necessary. Yet those wages and profits
will be higher if we are in love with the work
which brings them to us. They will not only
be greater, but every cent of them will add to
our lives a sweetness and fragrance which the
pay that is earned by an unwilling worker
never brings. The man who is in love with
his work not only gets more for that work,
12
WORK AND HABITS
power than that of the man who hates the
task that brings him his livelihood. The well-
earned dollar is a wise dollar; the ill-gotten
dollar is a foolish dollar.
Fall in love with your work. That is the
first rule for doing your work well. It is also
the golden rule of happiness. Fall in love
with your work and your labor will bring you
joy as well as money.

All the happiness this life affords is found
in three things : first, a true relation to God
;
second, the care of other people; third, the
doing with all your might work which you
love to do. There is no true and lasting hap-
piness possible from any other source. Neg-
lect God, care nothing for other people, de-
spise your work, and wealth will buy you
nothing but misery

power will bring you

nothing but heartache. Build your life upon
these three foundations and you build your
house upon a rock. Build your life on dis-
belief in God, on selfishness to others, on
13
WORK AND HABITS
hatred of your own workand you build your
house upon the sand.
Every man can be in love with his work if
he will always think of how well he can do
that work and not how easily he can do it.
Let every one of us, as we go about our daily
tasks, keep saying to himself every moment,
"I am going to do my work so well to-day
that to-night I will congratulate myself upon
it." That is the way to get others to con-
gratulate you upon it. Win your own intelli-
gent approval in the doing of your work and
you will also win the honest approval of your
fellow-men. And when a man intelligently ap-
proves of himself and his fellow-men approve
of him he has made his daily toil yield not
only money but also the sweetest fruit of life.
Never say to yourself that your work is too
hard; say to yourself instead, "I will do it so
well that the very doing of it will make it
easy." Never forget that the only real way
to do your work easily is to do it well. Never
pity yourself. Self-pity begets a sickness of
14
WORK AND HABITS
the soul from which few recover. Never un-
dervalue yourself. Believe in yourself. Be-
lieve that you can do your work well, and then
make good. Never doubt yourself. Faith in
one's self unlocks those hidden powers that all
of us have, but that so few of us use. Every
man and woman has undeveloped strength un-
dreamed of until emergencies call it forth.
Every one of us has been surprised at how
much we can do and how well we can do it
when we have to do it.
Do not wait for these emergencies to call out
the might within you. Realize your assets
every day. God has made an investment in
every one of us; shall we go to Him when
our life is done giving Him no return upon
that investment? When He invested in you
he meant that you should pay Him dividends
in the betterment of the world and helpful-
ness to your fellow-men. You can do this
only by your best work. And your best work
is possible only by faith in yourself and by
love of your work.
is
WORK AND HABITS
The second practical rule for doing good
work yourself is to appreciate and praise the
good work of others. Never envy anybody.
Jealousy destroys efficiency. The man who
spends his strength envying the good work of
another man will have little strength left to
do good work himself. Get the habit of hap-
piness over other people's success. Practice
praising the work of others. It will make
your fellow-man happy, but it will make you
happier than it makes him. It will encourage
him, but it will encourage you more.
In public life, when a man, whether friend
or enemy, makes a good fight for a good law
or against a bad one, or takes a stand for
righteousness or delivers an effective speech
for a noble cause, I make it a point to praise
that man, not only to the world and to him-
self, but to praise him in the secret councils
of my own soul. I do this as a matter, first,
of justice, and, second, of my own spiritual
and moral strengthening. When in my own
conscience as well as to other people I praise
16
WORK AND HABITS
that man's achievement, I have made my mind
and soul stronger for doing my own work
;
I have fortified my spirit for making my own
fights.
But if in my heart I hate him for having
done this thing well, I have weakened myself
for the doing of my own tasks; I have les-
sened my own courage for the battles I must
wage. The man who secretly envies the good
work of a fellow-man secretly despises him-
self. Jealousy of a fellow-workman means
paralysis of your own powers. I said that I
praise good work, whether done by friend or
enemy; but if any man is my enemy he must
do all the hating, for I am too busy to be any-
body's enemy. I have no time for hatred.
On the other hand, every one of us should
fearlessly condemn bad work and rebuke the
bad workman. The man who slights his
work; the contractor who uses bad materials
when he is paid for good ; the public man who
neglects to study and master the questions the
people have commissioned him to solve; the
2Work and Habits.
iy
WORK AND HABITS
banker who gambles with other people's money
instead of faithfully guarding it; the lawyer
who takes a client's fee and does not pains-
takingly prepare his case; the editor who de-
ceives the people in the interest of the owner
of his paperin short, every man and woman
who accepts wages, profits, salary or any re-
ward for doing work and then does that work
as cheaply or as falsely as possible instead of
as thoroughly and as well as possible, should
be denounced by all good workmen. Such
people are frauds; and frauds are the evil
weeds of human effort. They should be ex-
terminated as the farmer exterminates the
cockle-burs which grow among his corn and
take from the earth that nourishment which
should go into the golden ear.
Jesus
had no unkind word for any human
being except for such people as this. You
will find in all His teachings nothing but love
for every man and woman excepting only the
hypocrites. Them He scourges with words of
wrath.
18
WORK AND HABITS
Rules for good work fail without good
habits. Habit is the most powerful influence
in human life. Shakespeare makes Hamlet
say that "Habit is a second nature." Look to
your habits as you would look to your life or
your honor; for habits hold both life and
honor. More men fail in their adventures,
more neglect of public duty results, more bad
work of every kind is produced by bad habits
than by any other cause.
Good habits are the physical basis of good
work, just as love of the work is its soul.
Ruskin says that no immortal work has been
done in the world since tobacco was discov-
ered. Of course, this is not true; but the mean-
ing behind it is true. No man can be at his
best whose brain is inflamed by drink or whose
nerves are shaken by narcotics. And you must
be at your best. More and more, other men
are determining to be at their best. If every
man is not at his best it is his own fault.
Never blame other people for your misfor-
tunes. There is such a thing as luck, and
19
WORK AND HABITS
sometimes men seem pursued by evil fortune;
but generally speaking we are the architects of
our own failures.
In one of Maeterlinck's wonderful stories he
tells of a powerful man of the Middle Ages
who conceived great plans and executed them,
but always with difficulty. Frequently he al-
most failed, and succeeded only by super-
human effort. Finally he found that a secret
enemy was always working against his most
careful plans, neutralizing his most strenuous
exertions. As the years passed he determined
to find and destroy this enemy. Life was not
worth living with this hidden foe forever cir-
cling him with difficulties. One evening he
went out for a walk. He saw another man
approaching him. By that strange instinct
which warns us of danger he knew that this
man was his lifelong enemy. He resolved to
kill him. As he approached, he observed that
this man wore a mask. But, conscious that this
was the antagonist of his life, he said as they
met : "You are the man who from my youth
20
WORK AND HABITS
till now has been pursuing me, thwarting me,
almost defeating me. I mean to kill you, but
I will give you a chance for your life. Draw
and defend yourself." The stranger said, as
he drew his sword, "I am at your service, but
first see who it is that you would fight.
,,
He
removed his mask and the man stood
before
himself.
This fable is true of every one of us. More,
as his own enemy a man multiplies himself.
Where you think an enemy has injured you,
look closely, and nine times out of ten you
will find yourself in some evil guise. But
oftenest you will find yourself in the form of
your habits.
If there is any evil in us, bad habits will
develop it. And there is evil in all of us. Put
your strength to the test, but never your weak-
ness. Dare to try the apparently impossible
tasks if they are tasks for good; never fear
failureall the world loves a good loser; and
when you fail in the right, your defeat is only
the beginning of final victory. But fly from
21
WORK AND HABITS
the easiest thing that is wrong ; no man knows
how far he can withstand it. And remember
that we never get so old that the seeds of
wickedness will not sprout and grow and bear
the fruit of ruin, if watered and nourished by
bad habits.
Day by day civilization is demanding more
of each one of us

more that is pure and

strong. Twentieth-century society tolerates no
weakness, no taint in individual worker. To-
day every man must be above suspicion. Each
one of us must be proof against calumny.
Everybody is lied aboutsometimes by envy,
sometimes by ignorance. Never resent a false-
hood about yourselfafter all, it is a test of
your reputation. Let your life, not your
words, be your rebuke of slander. No man
with bad habits can do good work. Every
man's work speaks for him or against him.
Be superior to slander by doing well your
work, day in and day out, and remember that
perfect habits are necessary to perfect work.
No man with bad habits can do much work
22
WORK AND HABITS
of any kind, or any work of a good kind.
Look at a man's work if you would know his
habits. A man's habits are known by the work
he does. The surest way, but one, of keeping
your habits clean is carefully to watch the be-
ginnings of bad habits; for a bad habit has
a velvet foot. It steals upon one softly,
unawares. First it charms, next masters,
then destroys you. In the moral philosophy
which I studied in college this illustration was
given
:
"Neglect your conscience for only two weeks
and it begins to disappear; obey its faintest
whisper for two weeks and it becomes as deli-
cate as a woman's blush."
The supreme enemy of bad habits is re-
ligion. I do not mean that this is necessary.
I have known good men who were not re-
ligious and bad men who pretended to be re-
ligious. But the man who in his heart of
hearts as well as in his daily walk believes and
practices the Christian faith, is helped by a
power outside of himself and above himself.
23
WORK AND HABITS
His whole moral being is vitalized. I do not
pretend to say this so much from experience

I wish I mightbut I do say it with all my

might from observation. The wisdom of Au-
relius, Epictetus, Confucius is a tonic to the
soul ; but the words of
Jesus
are life itself. As
a mere matter of practical success in life, as
a mere method of making the most out of him-
self, I would rather have a son, brother or
friend become a thoroughgoing Christian than
to have any other single good fortune come to
him.
I do not mean that a man shall be religious
with his intellect only. It is not enough that
he shall be a Christian in his mind alone. Get
your Christianity into your blood. Such a
Christian cannot do poor work or dishonest
work. To such a Christian, such work would
not only be a fraud upon his employer but a
betrayal of his God. The man who has his
Christianity in his blood cannot have bad habits.
To such a Christian, bad habits would be
not only an injustice to himself and a wrong
24
WORK AND HABITS
to wife and children, but an insult to the
Master.
"What," said Victor Hugo, "is the grandest
thing in the world?. The midst of the ocean
in a cloudless night. And what is grander than
that? The starry heavens. What is grander
than the starry heavens? The soul of man/'
And it is this soul of man, the noblest thing
in all the universe, to which the Christian re-
ligion speaks. It is to lift ever upward the
soul of man that all the world's saints, states-
men and heroes have prayed and thought and
perished. It is to make free and give wings
to the soul of man that this Christian civiliza-
tion exists. That men and women shall be
better, nobler, every day; that happiness shall
be greater; that our country and the world
shall steadily become a lovelier place to live
in; that righteousness shall prevail is, after all,
the purpose of all progress.
25
MONEY
MONEY
'nr^HE first thing you have got to do in this
JL
life is to support yourself. The second
thing you have got to do in this life is
to support a family. The third thing you have
got to do in this life is to help other people.
When you have done these things you have
succeeded.
This division of life's activities is the nat-
ural, the ideal one. Everything a man does
beyond the . mere care of himself, wife and
children should directly help other human be-
ings outside of the clan of his own kin. He
who has ability and energy more than enough
to provide for his own owes that excess of
energy and ability to the people. If he uses
it for himself or his family he indulges in gross
selfishness.
He indulges in gross folly, too.
But,
then, is not selfishness always folly?
29
WORK AND HABITS
Behold the man who, having enough money
for himself and all who depend upon him, still
masses added millions to that sufficiency merely
to satisfy his money-appetite, or to fill the
golden reservoir from which his children may
drink the pleasing but deadly waters of dissi-
pation. That man does folly. Nature pun-
ishes him for it, too. This very excess of
wealth destroys his offspring mentally, mor-
ally, physically. His children degenerate in
ability and moral fiber in the poisoned atmos-
phere of that "society" to which their wealth
invites them.
The successful sons of our vastly rich, the
happy daughters of our modern Midases, are
so few in number that they are notable. Name
me one vigorous, powerful, masterful heir of
any historic American money-getter, and I will
show you more magazine articles and news-
paper sketches about him than you can read in
a year. He or she is a curiosity, you see

something so extraordinary that the people are

interested.
30
MONEY
Ordinarily, the man who has amassed wealth
with the unwisdom of selfishness, bequeaths to
his son, along with the money, a sneering cyni-
cism for all the sound and noble uses to which
that wealth can be put. And so these sons and
daughters destroy themselves by a life of do-
nothingness, an existence foul with can-
cerous pleasures. Thus, at midlife his chil-
dren have sucked, from the golden but fatal
orange which their father gave them, an ennui
that drives them to desperation.
I say this much at the beginning to burn in
upon your very soul, young man, this pro-
found truth: The making of money for the
sake of money is folly, and the very basest
and most vicious folly at that.
It is a commercial age, we are told, and so
it is. And that is why you should see to it
that the dollar never becomes your ideal. You
should never think of money as the real re-
ward for your life's work or any part of it.
Money is not the reward for your work, young
man. The work itself is your reward. The
3i
WORK AND HABITS
creation of a perfect piece of craftsmanship is
your reward. If you are a painter, your pic-
ture is your reward. If you are a statesman,
the wise law you drafted or the bad one you de-
feated is your reward. The money that comes
from whatever work you do is primarily a
measure of that work's excellence, it is true, but
really an opportunity for you to do more and
better work. But no man will do anything of
which he will be proud after a while who says
of his task : "There is a noble work completed
and so many thousands to my bank account/
Having hammered it in, then, that the
money ideal is a wicked ideal, taking the soul
out of your work and beclouding all the sunny
happiness of your life, I shall not be misunder-
stood when I say that the very first thing for
a young man to understand is that his very
first duty in life is to make money.
Self-support is the first duty of man. You
are in no position to help the world until you
have demonstrated your ability to help yourself.
32
MONEY
In proportion as your powers of self-help
grow, it is your duty to take on new respon-
sibilities toward others. You see, there must
be
something upon which your increasing abil-
ity to make money can expend itself. Other-
i
wise, it runs riot in destroying habits or in
the base passion of the miser.
So,
after you have made enough money to
live on yourself and are producing a surplus
r
ever so small, the whole of your energies
should be devoted to caring for a wife and
children and the building of a house. I say
the moment you are making the smallest sur-
plus above the amount necessary to support
yourself, for I repeat that if you wait for a
larger surplus, this excess will begin to ex-
pend itself in luxuries which will disintegrate
you, body and soul, or else will plant the seeds
of greed which will strangle you.
There is only one way to keep you a warm-
blooded, sane-minded, living, growing man,
and that is to keep your responsibilities just a
little bit ahead of your earnings. In that way,
3

Work and Habits.

<j^
WORK AND
HABITS
every dollar you make is absorbed usefully,
helpfully, happily; and by one of the most
beautiful laws of Nature your producing
pow-
ers are at the same time increased beyond the
demands upon them.
In all of us are powers lying
latent, or dor-
mant, if you like that word better. One by
one they are called into being by the inspira-
tion of our own activities, by the magic of our
exercised
usefulness to others and to the world.
Do not all of us occasionally have flashes
of insight into our own capabilities,
which a
moment before
we should have denied and
which, the moment after we have thus briefly
seen them, appear too good and extraordinary
to be real
? There is positively no limit to the
powers of the human mind. For example, we
all look upon a given situation and say that a
certain thing cannot be done, that it is humanly
impossible
; and yet, when we are put right up
to that very situation
we ourselves perform
that
impossible thing.
Thus the mind, the character and all the
34
MONEY
powers of them keep growing, expanding.
Thus our manhood and our womanhood be-
come larger, stronger, nobler, simpler; and
j we
undertake things which to the flabby-mus-
cled and timid-souled appear to be the very-
recklessness of daring, but which to the man
or woman with developed powers are not even
unusual, but merely natural and inevitable.
But, mark you, such development can never
come from the money ideal. It can come only
from the helpful ideal. And so it is that you
must keep your responsibilities to others al~
|
ways just a little bit ahead of your income in-
stead of keeping your income ahead of your re-
sponsibilities. This will appear questionable
only because the old idea has been that of Iago
:
"Put money in thy purse, Roderigo" ; and the
old idea has been that the measure of merit is
money.
But the measure of merit is not money; at
least the measure of merit is no longer money.
That is one of the crude things that we have
outgrown. We are living in the twentieth
35
WORK AND HABITS
century now, and not in the days of Shylock.
The measure of merit to-day is achievement.
The twentieth-century measure of manhood is
human helpfulness.
That is why it is that we no longer respect
vast wealth in and for itself. It is not even
distinguished to be a millionaire any more. A
bright man in Washington coined the phrase
"poor rich trash'' for all the wealthy inhabi-
tants of that town who have less than ten mil-
lion dollars. It is not particularly notable, you
know, to have less than ten millions. It is not
even notable to have more than ten millions.
The millionaire is getting to be quite com-
monplace.
When a man or a family gets up to one hun-
dred millions or more they then become a curi-
ositya sort of monstrous by-product of our
industrial civilization. The only way such a
person can, in these days, win the favorable
regard of his fellow human beings is by mak-
ing his money do helpful things for the rest of
humanity. His millions alone do not give him
36
MONEY
the entree even to our respect, much less to
our admiration.
The phrase "vulgar millions" has crept into
our common speech, and it will disappear only
when the new and modern conception of pri-
vate wealth shall have worked its beneficent re-
sults and made all millionaires nothing more
than the managers of trust funds for the bet-
terment, not of themselves or their immediate
families, but of the race.
A fifty-millionaire may build a palace on
Fifth Avenue ; but that does not make us even
respect him. We get on top of a 'bus, or one
of the "Seeing New York" motor-cars, and
glance at these structures as we pass, usually
with good, sound, hearty contempt in our
American hearts, and say: "For heaven's
sake! What did he do that for?"
Or another of this crowd may go to Eng-
land, buy his or her way into so-called aristo-
cratic circles, entertain a decadent portion of
the nobility, get his or her name in the
columns of the newspapers (for we like to read
37
WORK AND HABITS
about the antics of our irresponsible rich), and
the common American is not impressed the
least bit.
Would it not be well for foreigners to know
that we Americans do not consider the gilded
wanderers from this country, to which the
nobility of Europe pays so much atten-
tion, as Americans at all. They are not
the least bit typical of this fine, free, vital,
vigorous, honest American people. Per-
haps their fathers were, or, at the furthest,
their grandfathers. For these immediate
ancestors of our inheritors of vast riches
were mostly hard-working, God-fearing,
simple folk, fresh from the soil, laying,
with their vigorous intellect, fearless hearts
and granite muscles, the foundation of the
fortunes which their commonplace descendants
are squandering in Europe.
No ! The only way in which the master of
millions can earn the respect and attention of
the humblest American is by using his wealth
to help his fellow-man; and the regard of the
38
MONEY
common men and women of our country is
worth a good deal more to these very million-
aires than anything else in the world, for
none of us liveth to himself.
Do we not see this demonstrated in the
growing fashion of practical and systematic
philanthropy among our very rich men? One
builds libraries which will endure for cen-
turies
;
another endows universities, whose
growth will make them in a few years re-
spectable rivals of many foreign institutions of
learning, and which in the distant future will
reach far beyond the calculation of any mind
in their permanently increasing usefulness to
the race. Still another erects mighty cathe-
drals, such as Emerson describes in his in-
spired poem, "The Problem"

places of wor-
ship where for all time the humblest and the
loftiest may find common manhood and kin-
ship in their common worship of the common
Father of us all; a fourth changes a wilder-
ness into a material paradise, making gardens
of its swamps, and of its hills and dales a fairy-
39
WORK AND HABITS
land; a fifth pours out his wealth to turn the
wheels of some great world-work.
Cynicism with its unwisdom has explained
these generosities of the sordid, these benefac-
tions of what the world has believed and Mr.
David Graham Phillips so cuttingly called, our
"master rogues/' as the contributions of the
criminal to placate the Furies and stay the re-
sistless and never-failing hand of Retribution.
But this is not the explanation. It is the rich
man's obedience to the growing modern ideal
of moneyit is his agreement with the in-
creasing popular conviction that, though a man
may not be criminal in the accumulation of his
wealth, he becomes criminal when he does not
use that wealth for the benefit of his race.
And this is a new ideal. Heretofore, the be-
lief has been that wealth should be accumulated
for the man's family and his children. The
old notion was that a man might do what he
would with his fortune; but that concept is
passing away so rapidly that it has now almost
disappeared.
40
MONEY
Beyond a certain point, a man cannot use
his wealth for his family or himself. That
point passed, he must use his riches for his
fellow-man. This is the twentieth-century
ideal of money. This is the belief which has
already become a fixture in the minds and
hearts of the American millions. And it is
an unconscious obedience to that Higher Voice
that secretly speaks to the soul of every man

that more and more is making our American

millionaires practical and philanthropic dis-
tributors of their accumulations for aiding and
uplifting Americans whom they never saw and
future generations yet unborn.
Thus it is that the day
of
the private
for-
tune is past. There are no private fortunes
any more. There never can be private for-
tunes again as that term was understood one
hundred years ago, fifty years ago, ten years
ago. When a man makes money in excess of
all possible honorable uses to which he and his
family can put that money, his fortune ceases
41
WORK AND HABITS
to be a private fortune, just as the man him-
self ceases to be a private citizen.
He could not help this if he would. We
could not help it if we would. All the news-
papers in the country could not help this con-
dition. If Congress and every State in the
Union were to pass laws in addition to the
ones already in existence on private property,
the private fortune as heretofore understood
could never again be restored. For the man
who is rich to excess becomes by that very fact
a public man.
The man in the street and in the furrow,
the good women who make heavenly the com-
mon homes of the republic, the street-car
drivers, the merchants, the miners who dwell
in darkness that we may have light, the sailors
on the high sea, and every manner and condi-
tion of man and woman, want to know about
this man. They want to know what he is
doing with his wealth.
No matter whether they ought to want to
know about this or notit is the law of the
42
-
MONEY
human mind that they do* want to know about
it. And so the excessively rich man has fo-
cused upon him the attention of millions upon
millions of his fellow human beings among
whom he lives. This concentrated searchlight
never leaves him. These eighty millions know
about him, know what he is doing, believe
they know what he ought to do.
All this creates a condition which is not
alone psychological, although that would be
powerful enough. This steady, unvarying in-
tent and intense attention which eighty mil-
lions of people are giving to the excessively
rich among them is a concrete, definite, prac-
tical thing which the Croesus must take into
account whether he will or no.
More and more he is taking it into ac-
count. More and more he is doing zvhat the
millions
of
his fellow-citizens think he ought
to do, and what, in reality, he ought to do,
!
with his wealth. More and more he is con-
forming to the modern and Christian ideal of
wealth. And so every year and every day he
43
WORK AND HABITS
is coming to be less and less the owner of a
private fortune and more and more the trustee
of a public fund.
I say that rich men are being forced to con-
form to this ideal by public opinion. Your
wealthy man cannot get the world's approving
recognition in any other way. And after all,
the approbation of one's fellow human beings,
either now or in the future, is the most power-
ful influence that moves the souls of men.
"When I am gone, I want my fellow-men
to say that I did something with my wealth to
make this old world better," said one of the
world's richest men. Here was posthumous
public opinion working on this thousand-
handed money gatherer.
Public opinion! There is no human force
at all equal to it. When statesmen write a new
law for a nation they create nothingthey
merely make a note of crystallized public
opinion. The mass of the statutes of all na-
tions are practically identical. And what are
they? The mere setting down in w
r
ords of
44
MONEY
the
permanent convictions at which the race
has arrived. This same public opinion con-
trols the making of war, directs the conduct
of armies, determines the conclusion of
peace.
If you tell me there are rich men who are
indifferent to public opinion, I answer that
such men are already degenerate, and the pro-
cesses of Nature will soon destroy them and
their names from the face of the earth, just
as the same processes dissipate their fortunes.
It is only men who are great enough and broad
enough to understand the ideal this chapter
presents, and who are strong enough to feel the
psychological force of the thought of their
eighty millions of fellow-citizens, and who are
wise enough to understand the concrete, tan-
gible, business conditions which that thought
of the millions creates, who will be able either
to increase their wealth or to hold on for any
length of time to even a small portion of what
they have.
The one great lesson of history is that,
45
WORK AND HABITS
through all the ages, mankind has steadily
struggled upward toward the light, and that
the mind and conscience of myriads of mil-
lions of human beings on this earth have in
themselves the curative properties for all our
human wrongs. Ahd so I think that every
human evil will, of itself, right itself in the
end. The very movement which this chapter
has been observing shows the growth of an
ideal ; shows how the over lords of wealth are
being forced, in spite of themselves, to con-
form to that ideal; and all without a single
law upon the statute-books, all by force of that
mysterious but irresistible powerhumanity's
common and concentrated thought.
No man can say that finally this twentieth-
century ideal of money will not be written
into law. If the masters of wealth become
the servants of that ideal, it will not be written
into law, because it will not need to be written
into law. But if they resist the ideal, if they
cling to the medieval doctrine that what a man
46
MONEY
shall do with his wealth is nobody's business
but his own, then this thought of the universal
mind will some day crystallize into statutes;
and we shall have either the accumulation of
great fortunes prevented by law or their
management so directed by law that they shall
serve the country from which they were drawn
and the people from whose necessities they
were made. So go right ahead and make
money, young man

Not for to hide it in a hedge,

Nor for a train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.
Yes, go ahead and make moneythat's
your first duty; but understand that the
modern ideal of money robs it of its old-time
and sordid value

gives it a new and nobler

value. Understand that, in this twentieth
century, money-lust will spell your ruin.
Understand that the modern ideal demands
the use of your excess abilities for your fellow-
man.
47
WORK AND HABITS
When you get this thoroughly into your
consciousness you will think every day, as
you work at building up your business, that
the building of it is not the erection of a mere
money machine, but the development of an in-
dustry where fellow human beings can work
at their best; where the powers of your em-
ployes are being constantly developed and their
lives daily sweetened; where the whole power
of the enterprise over which you preside is for
the uplifting of all who have anything to do
with it.
And remember, finally, that the profits which
come to you from your businessover and
above what is necessary for yourself, your
wife and your children, and what remains
after reinvesting in your plant for its proper
developmentmust be administered as a trust
fund for the nation of which you are a part
and under whose beneficent institutions your
God-given abilities have had free play. For
the man of large powers must remember that
those powers are not his. Who deserves any
48
MONEY
credit for having a master mind? Not
you,
most certainly. God gave you your resource-
ful intellect, you who by virtue of it rule your
fellows. God gave you that intrepid will,
those magnificent lungs, that mighty heart.
Your wealth of mental and physical power is
not of your own making. They are the equip-
ment with which the Almighty has endowed
you.
Very well! do you imagine that He made
you a king among men for your own sake ?
No ! He gave you your gifts to use as a sacred
trust for the benefit of our common humanity.
And he who uses for his own selfish purposes
the mind and will and character given him
by the All-Father in trust for his fellow-man
not only robs his brothers for whom he is
trustee, but he cheats the great Ruler of the
Universe Himself who bestowed these talents
upon this disloyal servant.
I would have every young man who is
going out into life in this money age get
these views firmly in his heart as a part of
4

Work and Habits. aq

WORK AND HABITS
his living creed. Yes, and I would have every
man, young and old, who is the possessor of
excess wealth, ponder deeply this twentieth-
century ideal of money which has taken hold
of the mind and conscience of the American
people. For be sure, O lords of wealth, that,
i
unless you do conform to the thought of these
millions and use your great abilities to ad-
minister your vast accumulations for human
helpfulness, the people will make you do, by
written law, what they have failed to make
you do by their unspoken thought.
50
THE VICIOUS FEAR
OF LOSING
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
ONE
night in Washington a group of
gentlemen sat talking about the tre-
mendous moral renaissance that was
then uplifting the nation, and were saying that
it was akin to the other great spiritual and
moral revolutions which have so often moved
the Christian world. It was observed that the
people are ahead of Congress; that Congress
appears to be forced, by accumulating public
opinion, to make those advances in legislation
necessary to keep the statute books of the re-
public abreast of the thought and conscience of
the country ; and the curious phenomenon was
noted that, even where a reform is well under
way, a sudden right-about-face upon some
salient feature will often occur, and a majority
of Congressmen and Senators will be found
53
WORK AND HABITS
taking a contradictory position in a sort of
sheeplike panic.
This was putting it far too strongly, of
course; the nation's legislators stand by their
guns fairly well. And yet in these sudden
linings-up on phases of legislation contrary to
the spirit of the law which is being enacted, is
found one of the chief difficulties in securing
consistent, unspoiled and unmutilated laws
which the necessities of business and the safety
of the people require. And the explanation of
this is found in that peculiar mental and
spiritual cowardice inherent in human char-
acter.
The vicious fear of losing is the greatest
obstacle to the passage of needed laws with
which the practical and fearless legislator has
to contend.
"My observation," said one of the company
who were discussing this question, "extends
over twenty years. And what that observa-
tion teaches me is that we have too many
'winners' in American public life, and too few
54
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
losers/ What this country needs in its
national legislation is more good 'losers' and
fewer 'winners;' what we need is more men
who are perfectly willing to be defeated in a
fight, rather than to yield on essential points,
just because their constituents will be told that
they have been beaten if they do not yield.
"Whenever the capable manager or manipu-
lator of legislation gets almost a majority he
immediately makes it clear to the weak-kneed
ones that they will lose if they do not come
with him. And there is at once a scampering
for 'the band-wagon.' Most of the weaklings
have no particular conviction one way or the
othertheir chief desire, and almost their sole
thought, is how to remain in public life. And,
by some strange process of instinct, rather than
reasoning, they think they cannot keep in pub-
lic life if they are defeated. So over they
go to what they are told is almost sure to be
'the winning side.'
"
The man who said this was perhaps as
capable an observer of events as any living
55
WORK AND HABITS
American ; and, to those familiar with the pro-
cess of legislation, his words strike fairly in the
center of one of the most serious evils and
difficulties in securing such practical legislation
as is needed by the people.
The best evidence of this is in the question
which the shrewd Washington correspondents,
who are observing the process of a legislative
battle, always ask when things have come to
a head. "This means that So-and-So got
beaten, doesn't it?" is their questionor:
"Then So-and-So lost out, did he
?"
or, "Then
So-and-So wins, does he not?" We are not
very far away from the primal man, after all;
for the correspondents' point of view is pretty
nearly the point of view of us all.
What we want to know of our hero is:
"Did he win or lose?" We have no very par-
ticular thought as to what it was that he won
or lost.
We see this in the fevered anxiety of men in
public life as to what their papers at home shall
say of them. An unfriendly newspaper thinks
56
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
it can do a public man no greater harm than
prominently to display the fact that he has
lost a battle. It believes that it can do its
favorite no greater favor than to state that
"Mr. So-and-So wins/'
I remember seeing, not very long ago, in a
far Northwestern paper very unfriendly to a
man of that section, an article to the effect that
the politician in question had "lost out." This
was supposed to hurt him with the other poli-
ticians of his party. The truth was, however,
that, although this man had apparently lost,
he had in reality won.
Another newspaper which, for personal and
peculiar reasons, was childishly in favor of a
certain Congressman for whose interests it
was necessary to chronicle a victory, headed a
dispatch : "So-and-So victorious"and the
dispatch proceeded to show how he had won a
tremendous victory in a bitter fight. As a
matter of fact, this second man had won noth-
ing, had proposed nothing, had done nothing
and had had no fight. It was merely thought
57
WORK AND HABITS
necessary, however, to represent that he had
"ivon" something or other.
The point to all this is that the question
which is uppermost in the minds of the rank
and file of public men is that in no circum-
stances must they appear to lose, no matter
what it is they lose; and that at all hazards
they must appear to win, no matter what it is
they win, or whether, in fact, they win at all.
The greatest moral vice of our present-day
public man is the vicious
fear
of
losing. It is
far greater than the vice of bribery, of which
hardly any exists, if indeed there is any. It
is far greater than the ownership of public men
by interests and corporations, of which there
is not a great deal. For it is the weakness on
which the manipulators of legislation play
with greater effect than upon all other re-
sources at their command.
"I will fight to the bitter death for this
provision/' said a certain Congressman, in dis-
cussing a certain provision of a bill, over which
there was an unusually bitter contest and which
58
THE
VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
was finally adopted. Yet, three days later, the
same man said : "Look here, boys, it seems
to me that they have got us beat."
"What of that?" said a more sturdy col-
league.
"Oh, well," said this valiant Congressman,
"I cannot afford to get licked. I do not pur-
pose to be on the losing side/'
And, sure enough, he turned up against the
very provision which, but three days before,
he so fiercely championed. He had not
changed his opinion at all. He had merely
calculated that he would be on the losing side
if he was for that provision, and he felt that
it was necessary, at all hazards, to appear to
his constituents to be on the winning side.
He was seized with the vicious fear of losing.
That was all. But, as it turned out, that very
feature of the bill was adopted, after all!
Decidedly, we have too many "winners" and
too few "losers" in American public life; too
many men who simply have not the nerve to
read in the morning paper that they have been
59
:
WORK AND HABITS
beaten ; too few men who are willing to march
right up to guns for the cause which they be-
lieve to be right.
I do not mean by this that a man ought to
sacrifice a measure which is in peril by not
yielding on any point. Legislation, of course,
is a practical matter. Take some great reform
bill vital to the nation, such as the railway
rate bill ; or even more, the meat inspection
bill; or the pure food bill; or the statehood
bill, etc. The man who fights for measures
like these ought to fight to the last gasp for
the whole bill. And yet, if, at the last moment,
the opposition is strong enough to defeat the
whole measure unless its champion yields on
some minute point, he is a traitor to the re-
form for which he fights if he sacrifices the
substance of the bill to the detail.
Let him get the principle of the bill, if neces-
sary, by yielding the details. Of course, if the
detail itself involves the principles vital to the
zvhole reform, then he ought to go down in
defeat rather than surrender a line or a let-
60
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
ter. But the philosophy of compromising,
which involves concessions sometimes even
to corrupt interests rather than to a sacrifice
of the salient features of a measure, is far re-
moved from the vicious fear of losing which
makes legislators yield to superior numbers.
A few years ago a certain prominent pub-
lic man, who is a careful observer of the trend
of public opinion, calculated that the anti-impe-
j
rialists were about to win, and accordingly he
said in a speech that the Philippines were a
frightful burden, a great mistakeand various
other brilliant and quotable things. Within
one month, however, the same man became
convinced that the settled determination of the
American millions was to hold the Philippines.
He lost no time, then, in getting on to that
patriotic band-wagon, and a ringing speech was
made, filled with the loftiest eloquence about
our duty toward our oriental wards and our
determination under God to hold forever that
splendid archipelago, the door of the Orient, to
whose entrance we had been providentially di-
61
WORK AND HABITS
rected and in which we were forever
established.
Strange to say, the eloquence of this speech
was real. It rang true. It voiced the man's
real convictions. I have seldom listened to a
finer piece of oratory. It was all the finer be-
cause he had made up his mind that the pub-
lic opinion of the country was precisely what
his own private opinions were. But the reason
he had changed position was that, in the first
instance, he had estimated that the anti-impe-
rialists would win, and, in the second instance,
he had made up his mind that the patriotic
view would prevail. He was compelled to do
right, not by his conscience, or judgment, or
statesmanship, but by the vicious fear of losing.
But, after all, are these weak-kneed public
menthese "winners"so much to blame?
Do we not here perceive a national fault? Is
it not true that we Americans have come to
worship success more than righteousness?
"Nothing succeeds like success"that is our
62
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
shallow and materialistic epigram. Of course
it is not true. He who makes "success, and
nothing but success" his program through life,
will find the inevitable Waterloo at the end of
his career.
The truth is that nothing succeeds but the
right.
For example, nearly every great reform was
defeated at first. We forget that Wendell
Phillips, while making an anti-slavery speech,
was hooted in Faneuil Hall. His cause
triumphed in the end, and, of course, Phillips
and all of his great company are heroes now.
Oh, yes, to be sureheroes now! But hooted
yesterday. There was Lincoln, too. Douglas
beat him. He "got licked/' And he "got
licked" on purpose, too. Mr. Churchill, in
"The Crisis," tells the story of how the tempter
came to Lincoln during that great debate and
showed him the certainty of winning the
Senatorship if he would adopt a certain policy.
But Lincoln was not speaking to win the
Senatorship.
63
WORK AND HABITS
I am thoroughly against Mr. Bryan's
political ideas. But what American fails to
admire his dauntlessness ? I remember once
reading, in a famous New York paper, a bril-
liant article by a celebrated correspondent, de-
scribing "the downfall of Bryan," How this
correspondent pitied him! How clearly he
pointed out the folly of Mr. Bryan's standing
by his obsolete convictions, with the certainty
of "losing out," rather than fall in with the
powers that were then in control and becoming
the hero of his party! Oh, yes, Mr. Bryan
was "done for." But the heroism of Mr.
Bryan's willingness to be politically riddled
strengthened him more with his followers than
a thousand successes.
Undoubtedly Theodore Roosevelt has faced
more incidents of that sort than any man now
prominent in American public life. He has
faced defeat, he has even invited defeat, so
often that he is now probably unconscious of
the power of the forces which he challenges.
But Roosevelt has the luck
of
the chosen,
64
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
the fortune of the true man of destiny. Mr.
Bryan has a courage equal to Mr. Roose-
velt's, but Mr. Roosevelt is fortunate in
championing the right side at the right time.
There is a song: "I want what I want when
I want it." It is important to be right at
the right time. Mr. Roosevelt's strategy
. is equal to his courage, and, in addition
to that, he has the luck which seems to at-
tend those whom the Fates ordain as their
I
ministers.
To my mind there is nothing in our recent
;
national life so inspiring as the new spirit of
righteousness that is again reasserting itself
among the American millionsthe old martyr-
spirit that makes individuals and peoples worth
while; the spirit of
'76
and '64; the spirit that
is willing to lose while battling for what ought
to be rather than to win for what is. I shall
hail the day when the American people will
lift on their shoulders the man who dares to
lose in their interests, rather than the man who
5

Work and Habits.

65
WORK AND HABITS
merely wins regardless of whether what he
wins is good for the people or not.
Naturally, these "winners" always try to
make it appear that they have "won" in the
people's interest. No doubt they would pre-
fer to win in the people's interest, but that is
not their first consideration. Their first con-
sideration is to "win"

just to "w-i-n"and
win at all hazardsor, rather, not to appear
to lose. It is all a question of "saving one's
face."
But there is one type of public man even
more hurtful to the public interests than the
"winner." This is the man who fears
to make
a record on anything, and who tries to avoid
all possible conflict between principle and con-
ditions, between the right thing that ought to
be and the wrong thing that is. Such a man
keeps out of sight until the issue is determined
and the verdict rendered. Then he comes for-
ward as having been all along upon the side
which prevails. These foxlike people do not
stand for anything except themselves.
66
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
They have neither the courage nor the merit
of those brave, strong men who frankly stand
up and battle with vigor, fearlessness and
ability in favor of private interests as against
public interestsmany of these former are
honest and, in a way, admirable. But the vel-
vet-footed ones are secretly aiding the powers
that be because the powers that be have re-
sources ready at hand and can either reward or
punish public men. On the other hand, the
people, if too often thwarted, indulge in
their revenges also, and, therefore, it is the
creed of these self-servers in public life not
openly to offend either the people or the
interests.
But the "winners" are not bad at all at heart.
They are not corrupt. They are not especially
craven. They are merely victims of the vicious
fear of losing. They are adherents to our
national religion of Success. They are vic-
tims of the popular passion for victory. Nor
do I want to be understood as rebuking this
American spirit that demands achievement. I
67
WORK AND HABITS
am only insisting that this spirit shall be ex-
alted and glorified by a care for the methods
by which victory is achieved and, above all, the
purpose for which the fight is waged. I would
have the average American come to look upon
success in an unrighteous cause as worse than
defeat, but I would also have him feel
that this very Americanism demands that
he shall fight for a cause unyieldingly, cease-
lessly and forever, never knowing when he
is "licked."
Therefore, I would banish from the breast
of my countryman the vicious
fear
of
losing.
I would eliminate from his soul the admiration
for that kind of victory which merely prevails
over an opponent, no matter whether that vic-
tory was won for the right or the wrong. I
would have this people return to that spirit
which glorified the beginnings of the republic
and which, in the teeth of kings and in the
face of overwhelming armies, flung its denial
to the theory that "might makes right." It
was upon that denial that our fathers marched
68
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
to the field of battle and gave to the world the
splendid story, first of Valley Forge, but,
finally, of Yorktown.
All forward movements have their Valley
Forge, but inevitably, in the end, they have
;
their Yorktown, too. They all have their Bull
Run in the beginning, but, in the end, they
have also their Appomattox.
Let us require not only public men, but also
ourselves, to live up to those sayings of our
great ones which make our history and thrill
our blood to-day :
"I will fight it out on this line if it takes
4
all summer."
"Don't give up the ship."
"I have only begun to fight."
But let us be sure we always say these things
only for the right. Paul
Jones
was defeated.
His ship was shot to pieces, in flames and sink-
ing, but, shouted this typical American, "I
have only begun to fight!" Paul
Jones
was
fighting for the right.
Lawrence was dying, but that was little or
69
WORK AND HABITS
nothing to him. He was not concerned that
he had given his life for his country. Rather
he gloried in that fact. But "Don't give up
the ship," exclaimed he as his brave heart
stopped beating. Lawrence was fighting for
the right.
Grant had seen thousands of the best troops
that ever charged to death mowed down before
the enemy's guns. He was denounced as a
butcher, a drunkard, an obstinate fool. But,
said he: "I will fight it out on this line if it
takes all summer." And that one sentence
meant victory for the Union. Grant was fight-
ing for the right.
A crowd of men in House and Senate had
resolved to resist a certain foolish and harm-
ful measure. When the struggle had hardly
begun, before the outposts had exchanged
shots, one of the men came to his comrades
and said: "I hear everybody over here is
against us on this thing. Let us drop it. We
cannot afford

to lose."
70
THE VICIOUS FEAR OF LOSING
But the cause was not dropped. The faint-
hearted one was dropped, but the cause was
not dropped. It wonwon splendidly. And
it won not more on account of its merit than
because of the stout-heartedness of the few
faithful ones who believed that there is such
a thing in this world as conviction, such things
as right and wrong.
I do not mean to counsel foolhardiness.
That is as absurd in legislative life as it is in
military life. Where you have fought a good
fight and have actually secured important posi-
tions, and where continuance of the struggle
means the probable loss of the positions gained,
you are the merest child of folly if you insist
on taking that hazard. Such conduct indicates
bravado and not bravery. Where such a strug-
gle has resulted in substantial victory, and
where further fight means the possible loss of
the ground already gained, there let the battle
close, secure the ground already won, and then
another day take up the contest for the re-
mainderall this, of course, unless yielding
7i
WORK AND HABITS
means to yield a principle, and, in that event,"
there is nothing to do but to fight to the last
gasp and go on record, knowing that although
you are in the minority to-day you will be in
the majority to-morrow.
72
AMERICAN CHARACTER
ILLUSTRATED BY
WASHINGTON
AMERICAN CHARACTER ILLUS-
TRATED BY WASHINGTON
THE
purpose of civilization is character.
The building up of commerce, the per-
fection of arts, the development of
science, the growth of law and the bringing of
great masses of human beings beneath the
sway of common rules of actionall these are
noble phases of the evolution of the race. But
greater than all these, and the composite re-
sult of all, is human character.
When we speak of Washington we speak of
character. And, after all, this is the subject
that most concerns each individual human be-
ing. All of us are interested in the building
of the nation, in the foreign affairs of the
republic, in those vast domestic problems
which now are compelling the wisest thought,
75
WORK AND HABITS
highest courage and most unselfish patriotism
of the American people and their statesmen.
But to each of us, character is the most im-
portant. The vital question of what we are,
should be, may be, and therefore the infinite
subject of our individual existence and per-
sonal destiny now and for all time, enters into
the lives of each one of us every hour of every
day, every day of every year.
A great man is merely the highest type of
a people's character. He gathers unto himself
the permanent thought of the masses. He is
the composite personality of the millions. And
so when we speak of Washington as our great-
est American, we merely picture the highest
type of the American people. He rose to the
command of the American armies; he was the
master worker in erecting the government; he
became the first President of the republic.
And he did all this by sheer power of char-
acter. The colonies had abler statesmen, sol-
diers as brilliant, politicians infinitely more
adroit ; but he was the first in character. And
76
AMERICAN CHARACTER
so he became the largest influence of his times
for good

"first in war, first in peace, and first

in the hearts of his countrymen."
In considering the character of Washington,
the thought is compelled that, first of all, he
was a Christian; that the religion of the
Saviour was the most powerful element in his
life; and that the government of which he
was the chief founder was and is a Christian
republic. That is a fact which men forget in
the hurry of trade and wars alarms and the
laughter of prosperous peace; but it is the
most vital truth in our national existence.
George Washington wrought with religious
fervor to make the nation, whose destinies his
consecrated hands chiefly shaped, a nation
whose God is the Lord.
The sublimest figure in American history is
Washington on his knees at Valley Forge. He
was in that hour and place the American peo-
ple personified, not depending on their own
courage or goodness, but asking aid from God,
their Father and Preserver. Washington knew
77
WORK AND HABITS
that morals are priceless, but he knew that
morals are from within. And so he knew that
in that dread day when all,, save courage, had
forsaken the American arms, appeal must be
to that Power beyond ourselves eternal in the
heavens, which after all, in every crisis of the
lives of men and nations, has been their surest
source of strength.
Men and nations go forward in their pros-
perous days boastfully content with their well-
fed and often narrowly righteous lives. Men
and nations in these fruitful periods of their
existence glory in their strength and even in
their goodness. But the strength is intoxica-
tion; the righteousness is conventionality.
Fate, that schoolmaster of the universe, brings
to such men and nations her catastrophes.
And in an instant their proud tongues are still,
their arrogant hearts humbled, and they learn
the great truth that enduring power and peace
come not from within, but from the Giver of
every good and perfect gift.
George Washington knew that. That is
78
AMERICAN CHARACTER
why he made the snows of Valley Forge his
altar and on his knees asked aid from Him
whom the enemy had forgotten. The British
trusted in numbers and munitionsin infantry,
cavalry, artillery. Washington trusted in these
things, too; but also he trusted in the God of
men and nations. And Washington won.
Yes, but that was in his hour of weakness,
distress and want. But when victory con-
firmed the Declaration of Independence and we
became a separate people ; when finally patriot-
ism's loftiest dreams were realized and out of
the years of failure and discord that succeeded
the Revolution, the Constitution of the United
States appeared, and the government of the
republic began its immortal life with George
Washington as its first Presidentdid he then
remember the power to which he appealed
when famine and treason and death surrounded
him? Listen to these words with which he
opened his first inauguralhis first formal dec-
laration as President of the American people:
"It would be peculiarly improper to omit in
79
WORK AND HABITS
this first official act my fervent supplications to
that Almighty Being who rules over the uni-
verse, who presides in the councils of nations,
and whose providential aid can supply every
human defect, that His benedictions may con-
secrate to the liberties and happiness of the peo-
ple of the United States a government insti-
tuted by themselves for these essential pur-
poses. ... In tendering this homage to the
Great Author of every public and private good,
I assure myself that it expresses your senti-
ments not less than my own, nor those of my
fellow-citizens at large no less than either. No
people can be bound to acknowledge and adore
the Inevitable Hand which conducts the affairs
of men more than those of the United States.
Every step by which they have advanced to
the character of an independent nation seems
to have been distinguished by some token of
providential agency."
And in his first Thanksgiving proclamation
he acknowledges "the interpositions of God's
providence in the Revolutionary War."
80
AMERICAN CHARACTER
To the
Jews
of America Washington wrote
:
"May the same wonder-working Deity, who
long since delivered the Hebrews from their
Egyptian oppressors, and planted them in the
promised land, whose providential agency has
lately been conspicuous in establishing these
United States as an independent nation, still
continue to water them with the dews of
heaven and to make the inhabitants of every
denomination participate in the temporal and
spiritual blessings of that people whose God
is Jehovah/'
Like a heroic figure of the ancient days he
seemsthe days when men were great enough
to believe undoubtingly. Not Moses, the law-
giver supplicating on the sacred mountain for
worldly wisdom from divine sources; not
Joshua, the warrior, or Gideon, the hero,
smiting with the sufficient sword of an un-
questioning faith; not Daniel, unshaken amid
disaster with certain understanding that when
the just punishment of his people should be ful-
filled, golden days would come againnot
6Work and Habits.
3
1
WORK AND HABITS
these nor any of these mighty headlands
of the
race were surer of the heavenly origin of all
real power, real wisdom and real worth than
was this primal man, who in the common
speech of the American millions, is called the
Father of His Country.
George Washington believed in Providence,
and said so. He believed that we Americans
are God's people, and that this nation was
fashioned by the Almighty Hand for divine
purposes in the ongoing of the world, and said
so. To this simple and sublime belief he gave
constant and fervent voice. He did not fear
the large and noble destiny which this con-
ception of his country produced. He did not
believe that he was fighting to found a pigmy
republic, unable to enjoy liberty's blessings or
to discharge liberty's vast and ever-growing
duties. No! Washington believed that the
American people, whose feet the Ruler of the
Universe had set upon the paths of liberty,
would grow in power and righteousness as they
moved forward, broadening their influence
82
AMERICAN CHARACTER
with each day's march and blessing every land
and every race which that spreading influence
touched, until the divine purposes for which
this nation was established should be accom-
plished. And so believe the American people,
whose type and personification George Wash-
ington was and is.
But this stainless one was fiercely assailed.
How strange that mankind will abuse its saints
and heroes living, and exalt them dead ! God
never gave the world a character so noble that
calumny did not try to blacken it. Even the
Master was slandered, then crucified, then
worshiped. And George Washington did not
escape. It is a singular circumstance that most
of the maligners of the great and good have
been educated men, skilled writers, trained in-
tellects. Witness the scribes and Pharisees.
Not from the masses of the peoplesweet and
pure themselvescome these base suggestions
about mankind's noble ones. No! the people

true themselves

usually estimate aright

these servants of the race. But those in whom
81
WORK AND HABITS
a superculture has eaten from the soul the
natural, the generous and the good, leaving
only artificiality and envy and bitternessthese
have been in all countries and all times the
ideal agents of those who, for selfish purposes,
have slandered upright men.
This was true of Washington. They said
his religion was hypocrisy, his immovable de-
termination a fixed selfishness, his patriotism
a sham. They said he was a politician, and
that for the purpose of power he linked him-
self with the infamous and the vile. It is hard,
to-day, to believe that such charges were made
against this greatest of Americans, whose splen-
did fame shines across the century, as it will
forever shine across all centuries, with pure and
increasing radiance.
Yet these are only specimens of the slanders
published against George Washington in a
desperate attempt to break the people's faith
in him. The National Gazette, edited by the
accomplished Philip Freneau, and owned by a
powerful public man, who hated Washington,
84
AMERICAN CHARACTER
reeked with suggestion, insinuation and posi-
tive charge. Pamphlets written with a finished
art were scattered broadcast, flaming with de-
nunciation. Listen to an editorial typical of
many like it, published when Washington was
President
:
"Mr. Washington obtained character upon
trust. ... As Mr. Washington has become
treacherous even to his own fame, what was
lent to him as a harmless general must be with-
drawn from him as a dangerous politician.
. . . When we strip from him the borrowed
plumage which he has so long worn with an
apparent innocence, it is solely because he has
chosen to associate himself with birds of prey."
And here is another in a different vein
:
"Posterity will in vain search for any monu-
ments of wisdom in your administration. You
are inordinately fond of flattery. Indirect
praise is to you the language of sincerity."
These wreckers of character wrote that
Washington was debauched; that he was a
schemer using his high office for personal ad-
85
WORK AND HABITS
vantage. Those whom Washington appointed
to office were called "a corrupt squadron
5
'
until
the phrase became famous. In all these storms
and tempests of abuse, which never ceased
while he remained in public life, George Wash-
ington stood immovable and silent. To his
friends he raged as any honest man must do.
But before the people whom his slanderers
sought to influence he was mute. To his near
ones he declared : "I would rather be in my
grave than endure this any longer."
But he scorned to defend himself with the
weapons of those who attacked him. He re-
fused to deny falsehoodrefused to state his
side of the case, and amid the clamor of mis-
representation and abuse he remained dumb as
the voiceless and patient stars. He had faith
in the wisdom of the people. He believed that
time and eventsthose unfailing judges of all
men and all thingswould answer his de-
tainers more surely and convincingly than
could he or any other human agency. Not in
desperate battle, not in fateful council did
86
AMERICAN CHARACTER
Washington show such Christian fortitude as
when, to those who sought to ruin his adminis-
tration, defeat his plans, blacken his reputation,
he gave the splendid answer of complete and
utter silence. But it was not a free press that
vilified George Washington; it was a pur-
chased press, published not in the interests of
the people but for the purposes of its owner.
The dearest hope of Washington was that
the American people should be a righteous
nationnext to that, a peaceful people. Public
utterances, private letters, all the words of this
typical American counsel three things su-
premelyrighteousness, nationality, peace.
Yet this most pacific soul of his time and
country was also the greatest warrior of his
time and country. It is one of those strange
paradoxes in which the deepest truth is some-
times found that men w
T
ho hate conflict most
are yet the most relentless fighters of the world.
The two sentences of Ulysses S. Grant that re-
veal his character and will live forever are
these: "Let us have peace," and this other,
87
WORK AND HABITS
"I will fight it out on this line if it takes all
summer." It is that high type of character
which loves peace so well and hates war so
well that it will sacrifice, compromise, yield up
to a point where honor is reached, and then
fight with a willingness that is almost joy,
with an abandon that braves all consequences,
with a determination that knows no weakening.
Such a man was William the Silent.
Such was Cromwell. Such was the great com-
mander of our Civil War. Such are those
unconquerable spirits sometimes found in
political and civil life. Such is that splendid
American whose character is typical of the
highest and best in American life and aspira-
tion, Theodore Roosevelt. And such peculiarly
and supremely was Washington. Working,
planning, praying for peace through all his life,
yet all his life he was on some field of battle.
And in warfare it was his fate from youth
to age to lead forlorn hopes. It is as curious
as it is inspiring that, from that time in his
youth when he surrendered Fort Necessity to
88
Ltft
AMERICAN CHARACTER
the French he never entered a contest that did
not seem impossible to ordinary men. He
never planned a campaign that did not begin
in disaster, continue in defeat, and ripen into
victory only after limitless courage and effort.
This is an American quality. We Ameri-
cans, as individuals and as a nation, want
peace more than all else in this world but
honor. But when this may not be had, we
Americans, as individuals and as a nation, make
battle the business of our lives, find encourage-
ment in defeat, food in hunger, inspiration for
continued struggle in every fresh disaster.
That courage is mere intoxication which in-
creases on success; that courage is sublime
which waxes strong and joyous in temporary
defeat. The world and fate itself cannot down
such dauntlessness as that. And that is the
hero quality of the American blood. It is the
quality which makes each of us in our daily
lives know that every apparent misfortune is
only destiny's test of our quality and worth
before destiny gives us permanent success.
WORK AND HABITS
Let every man who has conflict, difficulty,
discouragement, take thought of the fearless
soul of Washington and be revived to struggle
on, knowing that in the end success is cer-
tain, victory sure. For Washington struggled
on through midnight, eating disaster's bitter
bread, with Fate's remorseless hand apparently
thrusting him ever back; and to all eyes ex-
cept the eyes of his own faith, the face of
God himself turned from him. Let this
glorious spirit of the Father of His Country
be the spirit of each one of us Americans in
our personal life, and of the republic in our
national existence. Let us move forward with
high purpose, knowing that obstacles are but
opportunities to prove our worthiness.
With all their wisdom the great men of our
early days lacked vision except on the funda-
mentals of character and natural powers of
government. For example, Thomas Jefferson
in a formal message to Congress declared that
the thirteen original colonies had enough terri-
tory to last the American people for a thou-
90
AMERICAN CHARACTER
sand generationsthirty thousand years. One
generation proved that absurd.
James
Madison
vetoed a bill to construct a national road be-
cause Congress had no power to make internal
improvements. To-day continuous use makes
this power commonplace.
But in elemental wisdom the lawgivers who
established this nation have not been equaled
since the greatest lawgiver of all time brought
down the sacred tables from Sinai. For ex-
ample, Washington knew what luxury and
extravagance mean to men and nations. He
knew that, no matter how resistless our navy,
how numberless the soldiers we may rally to
our colors, how exhaustless our resources, how
powerful our accumulated wealth, if an un-
regulated extravagance corrupt individual or
national character we are a lost people.
Extravagance, personal or national, is im-
moral. It is a theft of the future. It is the
result of a dishonest bookkeeping of character.
Prosperity powerfully tempts men and nations
to this vice; and the ability to resist it shows
91
WORK AND HABITS
whether man or nation deserves prosperity.
Loose habits of thinking instead of exactness
and cleanmindedness ; slippered slovenliness of
conduct instead of booted, erect and ready-
action; resources wasting and desires increas-
ing, with nothing to take the place of what we
spendthese are the processes and results of
individual and national extravagance.
Against this, the teachings and life of Wash-
ington are constant, fierce, determined protest,
and no lesson of this life is needed more
to-day by the American man and woman in
the home and by the American people as a
nation. As individuals and as a people we have
fallen into, the period of waste. The last four
decades have been an era of extravagance.
Ever since the Civil War we have been ex-
hausting our resources under the boast that we
were developing them. But the destruction of
wealth is not the creation of wealth, though it
may be made to look the same. And this is
what we Americans have been doing.
We have cut our forests thoughtlessly, law
92
AMERICAN CHARACTER
lessly, ruthlessly, as though we had been de-
stroying invaders trying to lay waste the land,
instead of citizens trying to preserve the
country's strength. We have cut our forests,
not for useful purposes alone, but that a dozen
men might be absurdly, vulgarly, sometimes
criminally enriched; and ten generations must
suffer for the making of these worse than use-
less millionaires. We have ripped the treas-
uries of ore from our western mountains
which, properly taken, might have served the
nation for unnumbered years. By the same
methods and with the same results we have
been exhausting our soil by the unscientific and
thoughtless methods of agriculture and put
upon the land the burden that tyrants put upon
a conquered people, making our fields produce
the utmost limit of their yield without return-
ing to the earth the elements of its renewal.
In every department of material activity we
have rifled our resources as a burglar rifles a
bank vault and spent them with the burglar's
fevered and hasty recklessness.
93
WORK AND HABITS
The spirit of Washington bids the Americar
people to-day to sober itself from this saturnalia
of personal and national extravagance. And
the American people will remedy this evil. No
permanent error can find lodgment in the
American mind. No enduring wrong can
grow in American character. Liberty makes
certain our knowledge of the facts, and the
discussion of our weakness means its correc-
tion. And so it is that free institutions are
the great preventative of national degeneration.
Liberty of speech; faithful and fearless voices
speaking to the millions from pulpit and plat-
form
;
a free and honest press telling the masses
the truth about men and measuresall the
elements of free institutions spell optimism.
So we see that free institutions are the self-
restorers of American character and conduct.
The nature of these eighty millions is also a
guaranty of self-recovery and unending ad-
vance in purity and power. Luther Burbank,
the miracle-worker of modern science, says
the processes which are building up the Ameri-
94
AMERICAN CHARACTER
can people are gradually producing the highest
type of man and woman. We are refreshing
our vitality from the soil. The coarse and
vital peasantry that come to us from other lands
are human fresh material which our institutions
will work into power. Our blood is a mixture
of the most virile currents drawn from the veins
of the most virile nations, with the Teutonic
blood the largest element. And thus this knit-
ting together of the strongest types of all the
nations, and the molding of the people thus
produced by free institutions, constantly renew
and keep us normal, sane and steady.
And so free institutions and elements that
make up the American millions will save this
nation from degeneration, make it sweet and
pure and powerful, increasing in vigor and
righteousness as it increases in age and num-
bers. Thus the dream of Washington shall be
realized; for his whole soul yearned for
American nationality, his whole life was given
to establish American nationality. Nationality
!
Nationality! Not a
confederation of states
95
WORK AND HABITS
whose destiny small and ambitious men might
at any time control; but a nation of people
united by a common tongue, a common faith,
common and mutual interest, and moving for-
ward to a common and single destiny, not
under a multitude of petty banners, but beneath
one supreme and glorious flag! That was
Washington's dream ; and such a nation events
and the years are building.
We care for prosperitycare for the bend-
ing fields of wheat, for merchandise, for com-
merce; the thunder of our countless factories
and the mighty noise of our numberless and
overladen trainsall these are high music in
the ears of this practical nation. We care for
them all, care for them vastly. But more than
for all these

-more than for gold and opulence,

more than for peace and more than for war,
we Americans care for righteousness and be-
lieve that in the religion of Mary's thorn-
crowned Son is found the highest righteousness
possible to man. And so we follow the high
example of George Washington.
96
113
82
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